is it blank slate, or acceptance?
Jan. 23rd, 2003 12:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockWatched Angel.. some vague convo about the episode, and a short, pointed rant about souls & vampires and general plot/character laspes between & within the two shows of Buffyverse.
Ok, I was liking this episode. Really. A lot, actually. The dialogue was good, Wes as sexy, the gore was scary instead of corny, the Connor scene w/ the demon & the slow-mo & the flying out of windows was cool. The eternal night was extra cool. Very scary. Someone on the writing staff has been reading![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eliade's Season Noir during their lunch break.
Liked it right up until the last two minutes, wherein Angel becomes Spike-of-Manchuria ver. 2.0.
All I can say is there better be a phonecall pretty soon between Sunnydale and LA, in which Wesley and Buffy have a long conversation about souled vampires being mentally fucked with by supreme evils. Cause if this is all entirely separate events--- that's just stupid. Stupid and repetitive and lazy.
And these people are on crack, thinking they could control soulless Angel.
And watching the last five minutes of this episode--- it almost contradicted the hihgly enjoyable 35 preceeding minutes. Because I was listening too them saying "Angelus, Angelus, Angelus" like he was a separate person (ironically, Angel is the only person who didn't say this, still referring to it all in first-person), and I kept thinking about Spike-post soul. Is he regarded as an entirely separate person even though he behaves radically different? No. He doesn't get a new, non-violent name. Nobody offers or even attempts to call him William in leiu of choosing a new one.
I think this can mean either two things, or possibly both:
1.) that in fact they are the same person w/ soul, and the SG is correct in the assumption of treating Spike like Spike and blaming him for his actions when he had no soul. This would logically mean that the LA gang (in assuming that Angelus is a separate, individual being within Angel--and Wesly ought to know better by now) is actually wrong and it's them that carry the misconception of what a soul means.
2.) the LA group is right, and the demon and the man are entirely separate, individual creatures in one body, capable of thinking independantly of one another. In which case Spike is now a total innocent, and the SG need to stop treating him liek the guy who killed people for 125 years & tried to rape Buffy, and start treating him like a *new* person, the way Dawn was "new".
Or... the most illogical answer, but probably what we'll be forced to assume:
3.) That the LA gang is right AND the BtVS gang is right: either because Spike is a "special" vampire, whose inner person is the same be it driven by soul or demon, and all vampires are like Angel; or the opposite-- that Angel is special with his double-personality thing, and all other vampires would be like Spike-- the same person, only driven by different desires when in a state of soul or lack of soul.
Either way, it's irritating. I knew this kind of thing would happen thinking about it post-Grave: that Spike wouldn't be given the tabula rasa that Angel was. And maybe it's better that he wasn't, because at least this way Spike's more knowledgable about his own entire inner self (all sides) than Angel, and Buffy is too, and thus she understands Spike better. It becomes what it is for Spike now: acceptance of change/growth rather than denying the sinner entirely (Angel).
However, in Angel's case it means everyone treats him like a different person, and convinces him he doesn't need to feel guilty because it wasn't him--- whether he agrees on this point or not. And I don't know that this necessarily means Angel got the better deal-- if Angelus really IS part of who Angel is, a dark part of him, the PERSON, then surely it's got to be healthier for him to accept that, and not for the people around him to pretend that it's different if it's not.
And isn't the fact significant that Angel's character from the very beginning of being written in the show was portrayed calling himself "Angel", not "Liam" or "Lee" or "William", meaning that he feels he is closer to who Angelus was than to who Liam was? If he really feels inside that he's not the same person like everyone says he's not, then wouldn't he have chosen to cast off the name of the demon as soon as he got his body back, in an effort to distance himself from what "he" didn't really do?
After the soul, for vampires, is it blank slate, or acceptance?
I don't know which way is better, or which is less painful, but I just wish they'd all pick one and be consistant.
Either both S&A "have souls" and thus are both uniformly forgiven and not held responsible, or they both are just the same demons w/ some new guilt button, and should be blamed for their ALL actions.
Is consistancy and logic no longer trendy?
That being said, evil Angel is neat, and fun to watch.
Ok, I was liking this episode. Really. A lot, actually. The dialogue was good, Wes as sexy, the gore was scary instead of corny, the Connor scene w/ the demon & the slow-mo & the flying out of windows was cool. The eternal night was extra cool. Very scary. Someone on the writing staff has been reading
eliade's Season Noir during their lunch break.Liked it right up until the last two minutes, wherein Angel becomes Spike-of-Manchuria ver. 2.0.
All I can say is there better be a phonecall pretty soon between Sunnydale and LA, in which Wesley and Buffy have a long conversation about souled vampires being mentally fucked with by supreme evils. Cause if this is all entirely separate events--- that's just stupid. Stupid and repetitive and lazy.
And these people are on crack, thinking they could control soulless Angel.
And watching the last five minutes of this episode--- it almost contradicted the hihgly enjoyable 35 preceeding minutes. Because I was listening too them saying "Angelus, Angelus, Angelus" like he was a separate person (ironically, Angel is the only person who didn't say this, still referring to it all in first-person), and I kept thinking about Spike-post soul. Is he regarded as an entirely separate person even though he behaves radically different? No. He doesn't get a new, non-violent name. Nobody offers or even attempts to call him William in leiu of choosing a new one.
I think this can mean either two things, or possibly both:
1.) that in fact they are the same person w/ soul, and the SG is correct in the assumption of treating Spike like Spike and blaming him for his actions when he had no soul. This would logically mean that the LA gang (in assuming that Angelus is a separate, individual being within Angel--and Wesly ought to know better by now) is actually wrong and it's them that carry the misconception of what a soul means.
2.) the LA group is right, and the demon and the man are entirely separate, individual creatures in one body, capable of thinking independantly of one another. In which case Spike is now a total innocent, and the SG need to stop treating him liek the guy who killed people for 125 years & tried to rape Buffy, and start treating him like a *new* person, the way Dawn was "new".
Or... the most illogical answer, but probably what we'll be forced to assume:
3.) That the LA gang is right AND the BtVS gang is right: either because Spike is a "special" vampire, whose inner person is the same be it driven by soul or demon, and all vampires are like Angel; or the opposite-- that Angel is special with his double-personality thing, and all other vampires would be like Spike-- the same person, only driven by different desires when in a state of soul or lack of soul.
Either way, it's irritating. I knew this kind of thing would happen thinking about it post-Grave: that Spike wouldn't be given the tabula rasa that Angel was. And maybe it's better that he wasn't, because at least this way Spike's more knowledgable about his own entire inner self (all sides) than Angel, and Buffy is too, and thus she understands Spike better. It becomes what it is for Spike now: acceptance of change/growth rather than denying the sinner entirely (Angel).
However, in Angel's case it means everyone treats him like a different person, and convinces him he doesn't need to feel guilty because it wasn't him--- whether he agrees on this point or not. And I don't know that this necessarily means Angel got the better deal-- if Angelus really IS part of who Angel is, a dark part of him, the PERSON, then surely it's got to be healthier for him to accept that, and not for the people around him to pretend that it's different if it's not.
And isn't the fact significant that Angel's character from the very beginning of being written in the show was portrayed calling himself "Angel", not "Liam" or "Lee" or "William", meaning that he feels he is closer to who Angelus was than to who Liam was? If he really feels inside that he's not the same person like everyone says he's not, then wouldn't he have chosen to cast off the name of the demon as soon as he got his body back, in an effort to distance himself from what "he" didn't really do?
After the soul, for vampires, is it blank slate, or acceptance?
I don't know which way is better, or which is less painful, but I just wish they'd all pick one and be consistant.
Either both S&A "have souls" and thus are both uniformly forgiven and not held responsible, or they both are just the same demons w/ some new guilt button, and should be blamed for their ALL actions.
Is consistancy and logic no longer trendy?
That being said, evil Angel is neat, and fun to watch.
